When my dad’s childhood baseball bat seemed to have had enough, and the timber’s stress fracture opened up to a good sized crack, his dad just sunk a couple screws into it to prolong its life. There: good as new, or even better. From first contact, a history bruises itself into the bat. It is transformed from a simian club into a memory maker, and it appreciates in sentimental value.
A bat abuses and is abused by the baseball at the same time, and wood or metal, eventually it goes the way of the steroid era slugger or careerist congressperson—a misshapen mass that has lost its potency. Perhaps it turns back into a club, a blunt object under the bed for the burglar who we expect never to show. But during its useful life, a good bat is the enforcer of restricted airspace. It is the hitter’s tool of selective punishment—of pitches that I like, none shall pass. Swings are gestures toward meaningful connection with one thing—a barreled ball. A game winning single, a deep fly that keeps on sailing, a line drive up the middle in reply to the pitcher who just hit your teammate, accident or not. Even a well placed sacrifice bunt needs a barrel, pulled back delicately at the moment of impact. A good hitter can do all these things.
The poem below got me thinking about bats, practice, repetition, motivation, reward. It brought up might vs right, aging alpha males with white supremacist tattoos in government, terminally damaged men who cannot imagine life without winning. About becoming powerful, and other ways of being. About Pascal’s "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly alone in a room”. That people running things might just be big little leaguers.
Cousins